Getting "The Job" Done

Alright, today I ran across this post on facebook from youtube entitled I Don't Need A Job from Pastor Jamal Bryant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuhivnGcDw&sns=fb] and curiosity led to me being doubtful until I heard what he had to say and it is very profound. To sum it up, we are wasting our abilities God gave us on jobs we should not be working because they are out of our sphere of purpose and takes us further away from what we really should be doing. Now he says a key that rings in my ear is that God calls us to work and not to get a job and for those old enough to remember Arsenio Hall's phrase, "things that make you go hmmmm." So let me give you a strange definition on the word "job" and this comes from a wrestling definition and not Webster's Dictionary which is to have a losing performance or basically to be a jobber. Now a jobber is different from a worker because a jobbers "job" is to lose to make the workers look good-let me say that again, a jobbers "job" is to lose to make the workers look good. It sounds harsh but we work our fingers to the bone to make someone else look like a million bucks and get very little reward from it if any to do performing the job. Some might say, what about stewardship (Luke 16:10) but that is speaking to people that being stewards in a cause or a purpose that God has set them on. You have to remember that "whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (Ecclesiastes 9:10) is talking about your destiny. So if you're supposed to be a teacher, you shouldn't be managing at a grocery store, if you're supposed to be sanitation worker figuring out how to make a cleaner environment, you shouldn't be in a cubicle crunching numbers, etc. We only have one life to live and very limited opportunities to gain talents for God's glory with the talents He gave us to use. This is something we really need to take to heart and applying it because God is giving us our opportunities right now to use the gifts He placed in us to the max of our abilities and we can not afford to miss what is coming towards us. Check out Jon Acuff's book Quitter: Closing The Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job.

Find Your Life

So in studying Matthew 10 (focusing on verse 39) and getting wisdom from Pastor Burns (twitter.com/gospeloffaithwc), it is clear that you cannot do anything without Christ. I think often times we say that and repeat that in our affirmations or have it in our cubicle or on a bumper sticker but we do not really apply it. Personally, I started to take it out of context until I got the understanding of it: if you try to find your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for Christ’s sake, then you’ll find out. If you notice before that statement He said you have to take up your cross and follow Him and right before that He says if you love your family more than Him then you are not even worthy of Him. It sounds harsh but notice the things we have to give up in this chapter to gain the life God has put in us that we have been seeking for our whole lives: we have to let go of having fear of people and we have to let go of fear we have of losing our family. The old saying comes to mind, the tighter you hold on to something the easier it is for it to slip through your fingers. And honestly, our natural instincts are to go with popular opinion and to love papa, mama, big bro, and baby sis above all others so that is why Jesus says you have to crucify that along with other things so that you can put it out of your mind to not seek for your own life but seek Him and He will give you an even greater life. Check this out, if Christ is not the center and the guiding force in what you do, whatever you put your hands to do will be meaningless and it will come to nothing (Psalm 127). We can do all things through Christ which strengthens us only if we are willing and obedient to do all things He leads us in.